New Hope for Senator John McCain

First compound for receptors in schizophrenia and Alzheimer's holds promise
April 20th, 2009 in Medicine & Health / Research

For almost 20 years, pharmacological companies have known that certain compounds that activate two specific CNS receptors, causing them to release the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, are effective in treating the cognitive and motor problems related to both schizophrenia and Alzheimer's disease (AD).

But because the compounds are "dirty" - scientific lingo for a lack of selectivity - they activate not only the essential M1 and M 4 muscarinic receptors but also the other three members of the family, designated M2, M3 and M5, resulting in unacceptable gastrointestinal and other side effects.

That may soon change, thanks to the discovery of a truly selective agonist that targets only the M1 receptor, known to be central to cognition and thus implicated in diseases like AD and schizophrenia.

On April 20, speaking at the Experimental Biology 2009 meeting in New Orleans, Vanderbilt graduate student Evan Lebois in the laboratories of Dr. David Weaver and Dr. Craig Lindsley describes the complex, labor-intensive screening and discovery process that allowed Vanderbilt scientists to pinpoint what big pharma's computers and robots could not, and the process now underway to move the compound toward becoming an effective drug to treat AD and schizophrenia. The presentation is part of the scientific program of the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics.

In stage one, the search for the appropriate molecule, Dr. David Weaver, director of the Vanderbilt Chemical Biology's High-Throughput Screening facility and co-director of the Molecular Library Screening Center, painstakingly ran high-throughput screens of every compound in the molecular library to see which ones activated the M1 receptor. Most such studies are done on computers with robots and automatic scoring mechanisms. By looking with his own eyes at the waveform reactions of every compound in the library, including those already rejected by the robotic systems, Dr. Weaver identified the molecule the scientists dubbed VU019467.

It was now time for stage two, and therefore the turn of Dr. Craig Lindsley, head of Medicinal Chemistry and Director of the Vanderbilt Specialized Chemistry Center for Accelerated Probe Development. His task was to create an effective probe compound.

"There is no point optimizing a molecule's potency in vitro if it turns out not to work in vivo," says Lindsley. His probe works in both. The team now is trying the compound in mouse and rat models of Alzheimer's and schizophrenia to determine what dose range restores the appropriate level of signaling through the targeted receptor. In addition, this compound provides a tool of unprecedented selectivity that will allow the researchers to tease apart the basic role of the M1 and M4 receptors in CNS function and disease states to degree that has never before been possible.

The team hopes that within a year they will have a compound ready to license to a pharmacological company that can continue with preclinical development and then onward to human trials.

Source: Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (news : web)

Keith Olbermann: "President Obama's Mistake"

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Knaan talks with Davey D about the "truth behind the Somali Pirates"

Can anyone ever really be for piracy? Outside of sea bandits, and young girls fantasizing of Johnny Depp, would anyone with an honest regard for good human conduct really say that they are in support of Sea Robbery? Well in Somalia, the answer is: it's complicated. The news media these days has been covering piracy in the Somali coast, with such lopsided journalism that it's lucky they're not on a ship themselves. It's true that the constant hijacking of vessels in the Gulf of Aden is a major threat to the vibrant trade route between Asia and Europe. It is also true that for most of the pirates operating in this vast shoreline, money is the primary objective. But according to many Somalis, the disruption of Europe's darling of a trade route is just Karma biting a perpetrator in the butt. And if you don't believe in Karma, maybe you believe in recent history. Here is why we Somalis find ourselves slightly shy of condemning our pirates.

Somalia has been without any form of a functioning government since 1991. And despite its failures, like many other toddler governments in Africa, sprung from the wells of post-colonial independence, bad governance and development loan sharks, the specific problem of piracy was put in motion in 1992.

After the overthrow of Siyad Barre, our charmless dictator of twenty-some odd years, two major forces of the Hawiye Clan came to power. At the time, Ali Mahdi, and General Mohamed Farah Aidid, the two leaders of the Hawiye rebels were largely considered liberators. But the unity of the two men and their respective sub-clans was very short-lived. It's as if they were dumbstruck at the advent of ousting the dictator, or that they just forgot to discuss who will be the leader of the country once they defeated their common foe. A disagreement of who will upgrade from militia leader to Mr. President broke up their honeymoon. It's because of this disagreement that we've seen one of the most devastating wars in Somalia's history, leading to millions displaced and hundreds of thousands dead. But war is expensive and militias need food for their families, and Jaad (an amphetamine-based stimulant) to stay awake for the fighting. Therefore a good clan-based Warlord must look out for his own fighters. Aidid's men turned to robbing aid trucks carrying food to the starving masses, and reselling it to continue their war. But Ali Mahdi had his sights set on a larger and more unexploited resource, namely: the Indian Ocean.

Already by this time, local fishermen in the coastline of Somalia have been complaining of illegal vessels coming to Somali waters and stealing all the fish. And since there was no government to report it to, and since the severity of the violence clumsily overshadowed every other problem, the fishermen went completely unheard. But it was around this same time that a more sinister, a more patronizing practice was being put in motion. A Swiss firm called Achair Parterns, and an Italian waste company called Progresso, made a deal with Ali Mahdi, that they could dump containers of waste material in Somali waters. These European companies were said to be paying Warlords about $3 a ton, where as in to properly dispose of waste in Europe costs about $1000 a ton.

In 2004, after Tsunami washed ashore several leaking containers, thousand of locals in the Puntland region of Somalia started to complain of severe and previously unreported ailments, such as abdominal bleeding, skin melting off and a lot of immediate cancer-like symptoms. Nick Nuttall, a spokesman for the United Nations Environmental Program, says that the containers had many different kinds of waste, including "Uranium, radioactive waste, lead, cadmium, mercury and chemical waste." But this wasn't just a passing evil from one or two groups taking advantage of our unprotected waters, the UN Convoy for Somalia, Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, says that the practice still continues to this day. It was months after those initial reports that local fishermen mobilized themselves, along with street militias, to go into the waters and deter the Westerners from having a free pass at completely destroying Somalia's aquatic life. Now years later, that deterance has become less noble, and the ex-fishermen with their militias have begun to develop a taste for ransom at sea. This form of piracy is now a major contributor to the Somali economy, especially in the very region that private toxic waste companies first began to bury our nation's death trap.

Now Somalia has upped the world's pirate attacks by over 21 percent in one year, and while NATO and the EU are both sending forces to the Somali coast to try and slow down the attacks, Blackwater and all kinds of private security firms are intent on cashing in. But while Europeans are well in their right to protect their trade interest in the region, our pirates were the only deterrent we had from an externally imposed environmental disaster. No one can say for sure that some of the ships they are now holding for ransom were not involved in illegal activity in our waters. The truth is, if you ask any Somali if they think getting rid of the pirates only means the continuous rape of our coast by unmonitored Western vessels, and the production of a new cancerous generation, we would all fly our pirate flags high.

It is time that the world gave the Somali people some assurance that these Western illegal activities will end, if our pirates are to seize their operations. We do not want the EU and NATO serving as a shield for these nuclear waste-dumping hoodlums. It seems to me that this new modern crisis is a question of justice, but also a question of whose justice. As is apparent these days, one man's pirate is another man's coast guard.

Pointer has some questions:

• It's a story and it can be believed, but think about it. Why should criminals be dumping waste from Europe over the wall near the coast of Somalia? The Atlantic Ocean is not that far away and if there is that less control they can dump it into the Atlantic depth of 400-4500 meters.
• Why do they attack other ships than the "bunch of ships" there are with criminal intent, illegal dumping or fishing alike?
• Why is illegal practice never reported and why did the pirates never catch an illegal ship?

The story is peculiar and very entertaining but not very plausible.

The Buccaneer Stops Here

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The President Who Told The TRUTH

Unfortunately the source of this video is terribly suspected, because this Jones-figure is the King of Conspiritists (endorsing John McCain), but mind the JFK-part.

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Religious Right Group Claims Same Sex Marriage Leads to Mass Murder

http://www.alternet.org/story/135997/

Is there a connection between same-sex marriage and mass murder?

That's what one religious right outfit is suggesting. This week, Morality in Media disseminated a statement noting that the Iowa Supreme Court had legalized gay marriage on the same day that a gunman murdered 13 people in Binghamton, New York. The headline on the release: "Connecting the Dots: The Line Between Gay Marriage and Mass Murders." The group's president, Bob Peters, notes that the "underlying problem is that increasingly we live in a 'post-Christian' society, where Judeo-Christian faith and values have less and less influence." And, he continues, this "secular value system is also reflected in the 'sexual revolution,' which is the driving force behind the push for 'gay marriage.'"

Here's the punch line:

It most certainly is not my intention to blame the epidemic of mass murders on the gay rights movement! It is my intention to point out that the success of the sexual revolution is inversely proportional to the decline in morality; and it is the decline of morality (and the faith that so often under girds it) that is the underlying cause of our modern day epidemic of mass murders.

That is, he's not saying that gay rights activists are directly responsible for the murderous actions of gun-toting madmen. But Peters maintains that those who champion gay rights are undermining the moral fiber of society and that this assault on traditional values creates an environment in which killing sprees can more easily occur. These acts of gun violence, he insists, are the poisoned fruit of the push for gay marriage.

Talk about exploiting tragedy to advance an agenda. It might be tempting to dismiss Peters and Morality in Media as marginal, but this group did receive federal funding from 2005 through 2007. The money supported a Morality in Media project, ObscenityCrimes.org, which paid two retired law enforcement officers to review citizen complaints about obscenity on the Internet and to forward the best leads to the US Justice Department for possible prosecution. A total of $300,000 was provided to Morality in Media through two earmarks Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) placed into spending bills, according to Peters. And a portion of that money went to cover Peters' salary. As The New York Times reported in 2007, no obscenity prosecutions had resulted from the Morality in Media's obscenity-tracking work.

Peters tells me that since 2007 -- thanks to the fuss about earmarks -- he has received no more funds from the US government. After the earmarked grants ran out in 2007, he did apply directly to the Justice Department and was turned down. Since then, he has raised private funds to keep ObscenityCrimes.org going. That may be for the best -- particularly for Morality in Media. Peters has recently attacked President Barack Obama's pick for deputy attorney general, David Ogden, as an "ACLU-minded" sort who would "likely weaken" government efforts "to curb sexual trafficking and sexual exploitation of children." It would be difficult -- or, at least, awkward -- for Peters to blast a Justice Department that was funding his own work.

In his statement on gay marriage and mass murder, Peters notes that Christianity and Judaism teach "that we are to love our neighbors as ourselves and to forgive others." But on the subject of gay marriage, he does seem to have a rather unforgiving approach.

David Corn is the Washington bureau chief of Mother Jones and the co-author of Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War and is the author of The Lies of George W. Bush. He writes a blog at davidcorn.com.